勐海胡椒 meng hai hu jiao

Climbers glabrous except for rachis, dioecious. Stems ± gray when dry, ca. 2 mm thick, ridged. Petiole 1-1.2 cm; prophyll to as long as petiole; leaf blade oblong to ovate-lanceolate, 10.5-13(-16) × 3-5 cm, papery, finely glandular, slightly bullate when old, abaxially pale gray, base obtuse to tapered, ± symmetric to slightly oblique, bilateral difference 0-2 mm, apex acuminate and mucronate; veins pinnate, 3 per side, alternate, slender, apical pair arising 4-5.5 cm above base; reticulate veins prominent. Spikes leaf-opposed. Male spikes 8-9 cm × ca. 2 mm; peduncle 2.5-3 cm; bracts oblong, ca. 1.2 × 0.5 mm, adnate to rachis, margin and apex free. Stamens 3, exserted; filaments longer and thicker than anthers; anthers ovoid. Female spikes to 15 cm in fruit; rachis and bracts as in male spikes. Drupe subglobose, ca. 3 mm in diam. (not fully mature), sessile. Fl. Mar.

Climbing on trees. S Yunnan (Menghai Xian) [Laos, S Vietnam]

The name was first given as "Piper chandocanum," but the epithet is based on "Mont. de Chaudoc" so "chandocanum" must be treated as an orthographic error. The presumed holotype of this species has the inflorescence rachis glabrous, albeit partly covered with fungal hyphae. The specimen from Menghai, Yunnan, has the rachis pubescent.